Isolation rooms in schools

[Chichi444]

Hello !

So my sons school has very strict behaviour policy which includes Isolation rooms which pupils are sat in without the freedom of leaving even for just going to the bathroom unless accompanied by a member of staff and and are expected to remain silent and have no school work given to them and these pupils are given no movement breaks.

This punitive measure is given for even the most minor slip ups such as not having the right uniform or for more serious behavioural issues.

My 11 year old son in year 7 and he was given two consecutive days of Isolation which he sat for 7 hours in a row without movement break so altogether 14 hours , for nothing which was severe enough for to be punished that way.

I was told that he was to sit a third 7 hours in isolation.
Ive decided to challenge their decision as I feel the reason for it didn’t warrant such harsh punishment.

Ive wrote to the principal requesting to review but meanwhile my son isn’t in school as the school told me that whenever he returns to school he will have to sit the isolation.

Now what I’m asking is has any parent out there ever challenged the school on such matters what was you experience and eventually the outcome?

Any input would be so helpful thank you!🫶

OP- I'm really sorry you and your son are going through this. I'm actually upset at the thoughts of any 11 year old child being put through this punishment. My kids would be traumatised if this happened to them, as would anyone. It seems like a completely disproportionate reaction on the school's part.
If I was going looking at schools and they showed me around and said 'and this is our isolation room..' I would run a mile. He's a kid!! He's learning how to navigate the world and learning what is appropriate and this punishment is not going to help him.

For those who say inclusion rooms (or whatever they are called) are not acceptable or draconian – I wonder if they have ever taught or worked in a secondary school. Most schools IME have something similar. They can work, if only to remove a disruptive student to a quieter environment away from their peers (for whom they may be acting up). I am not saying this is what the OP’s DC was doing. In fact the misbehaviour the OP has detailed is obviously not acceptable. The PP who said “he didn’t set fire to the school” (as if that might be worthy of internal exclusion) – I would imagine that would result in P Ex tbh.

I note that @Chichi444 has not mentioned what else her son did to earn time in the separate room. Maybe that is less relevant (tho I would very much agree with those who say a child who is not white can still do racists actions).

Here’s my take:

• Inclusion rooms can work and be effective
• As a teacher I was always asked to provide work – I did tho it was very rarely done
• Students in rooms were allowed out – sometimes at usual break times, sometimes separately

I am genuinely surprised that no work is allowed. I would double check that with the school OP. Maybe teachers are not supplying work (it is often very difficult to supply on the hoof if a lesson includes input, group work, feedback) but I cannot believe (sorry) that he cannot take in a reading book, ask for a textbook to copy out some work (dull but not useless) or get some generic worksheets from someone. Or be given paper to write a practice English essay.

As @noblegiraffe says, I don’t think you will get very far with a challenge to the procedure overall. As I say, it is pretty common to take students out of the class if they do not behave. I would make an enquiry as to the details re work being allowed; loo breaks being allowed; break and lunch time access. Then go from there but tbh I would be surprised if it is exactly as you report. If it is, I agree it is not workable.

Thank you for your kindness @BruachAbhann and also everyone else who’s understanding my point of view thank you for posting.

I will be posting back for outcomes for anyone who is interested.

thank you xx

I think the concept of isolation is very common.

Its unusual to have no work as a pupil who is suspended is supposed to be given work.

I dont have any issues with bring accompanied to the loo.

I do have an issue with no movement due to blood clot risks.

So esstentiinally I would be asking for appropriate work to be set and mitigation for blood clots. They should get up every hour, drink lots.

It depends if this is happening. If so it’s not right or useful. If the versions below with work etc are what’s happening then it’s a bit different.

As described here though, it sounds as pp says too draconian.

Reading back it seems the main issue is whether work is supplied or he is just waiting with nothing.

In Scotland dc in secondary school are entitled to 27.5 learning hours a week. Is there nothing similar if you are in England or wales ? I’d be furious if my dc wasn’t getting that because they were confined to a room. Tbf it was very stupid what he did on a school device but I’d be insisting he had work to do

I do think some schools give out isolation punishments too easily. When I was at school you sometimes talked in hushed tones of the naughtiest kids being in isolation but it was as a punishment for very bad behaviour - fighting or swearing at a teacher for example. At my boys’ school isolation was given as the consequence of three negative behaviour points in a day. Which sounds like it would be for serious behaviour, but one of the ways to get a negative behaviour point was to ‘not be prepared for the lesson.’ So if you forgot your pencil case, for example. They always had a mini study session first thing so could technically get a negative point for not having a pen for that, then again in each of the next two lessons and then that would mean the afternoon spent in isolation. Whereas in the 90s at my school a teacher would generally just lend you a pen and you’d get on with the lesson. I do think there should be more common sense and taking into account the full circumstances around punishments given out in some schools these days.

Modern form of corporal punishment essentially. It is “psychological” torture.

Is this Holland Park? I'd remove him from the school. That's horrible

To be honest though OP, if he is allowed to do work, why did you not set him any? I think if one of my DC were in that type of school, I would send them in with lots to do in that time. They surely cannot stop him reading, revising vocabulary, doing maths papers, etc, colouring stuff?

@IloveagoodnapI always used to check equipment with my firm at the start of the day and offer a pen to anyone who didn’t have one. It’s not hard surely to hang on to it. Tho I would also give them out in lessons. My pen budget has plummeted since I stopped teaching in school!

It’s the schools responsibility to ensure dc are given learning hours with work planned by a teacher. I wouldn’t have the first clue where to start allocating work for my high school age dc for each subject

Did you know that if you always ‘just lend a pen’ when a kid doesn’t have a pen you end up handing out multiple pens at the start of every lesson and also end up spending a fortune on pens.

If you sanction for not having a pen, that problem almost entirely disappears and kids suddenly find it in them to sort their own pens.

@liveforsummer - regardless of whose responsibility it is, I have a year 7. I would not want him to get really traumatised by the experience if everything else was going well. I would be annoyed at the school. But I would not mention it in front of him. I would set him work so he is busy and can get on with stuff. He would want to! I would probably have set him an essay or poster on racism and think about questions the OP raised on internalised racism, can you even be racist if you are mixed race and I would have picked up some books from the library so he has stuff to do. I would have tried and turn it into something positive for DC.
At the same time, I would be writing to the governors and head and complain but my DC would not know about this.

But surely that’s where the common sense and taking account of all circumstances aspect comes in? If you sanction the studious child who spent hours doing an extra credit project the night before and forgot they’d taken their pencil case out of their bag to do it then you’ll likely panic them and give them anxiety about school. Likewise a child who has a chaotic home life and finds school a place of sanctuary will feel let down by their trusted adults if they are sanctioned because they have no money to replace a used up pen. Whereas a happy go lucky child who gets loads of pens but is a bit forgetful, then yes a sanction might make them remember next time.

This is very true @noblegiraffe

Tbf I mostly gave pens to my form (only a few students as a rule) which seems reasonable. Otherwise it was mainly if I knew there was a reason for no pen as @Iloveagoodnap says. I'm sure you do the same. Agree tho overall. A student should come to school with a pen.

DS’ school hands out demerits for minor infractions like forgetting stuff in points. Only if you get enough minor points, do you get a detention. The kids can borrow from each other, part of developing social skills. The office usually has a few spare ties. Honestly, in his school, if forgetting a pen was a straight detention, there would soon be a roaring trade amongst the boys selling pens to each other.

This is absolutely diabolical treatment of a child. It was actually done to my child because he retaliated after weeks of being harassed by another male pupil who was making inappropriate comments to him. He had told staff multiple times he felt uncomfortable with the comments. and I blew a gasket over the year head locking him in a room for the day.

I work in education and children should not be locked up in a room like a caged wild animal. I am unsure if you are in Scotland or England but it happened to my son in Scotland and the education board upheld my complaint against the school.

You need to get your childs school policy and follow the complaints procedure to the letter. Look up education law in your region around this and make sure everything you do complaint wise is in writing. He needs spoken to about his behaviour but the schools reaction is way over the top.

I always just pick up any pens left on desks/the floor at the end of each lesson & shove them in a mug on the 'Enable Table' by the door.

If you quietly help yourself to a pen, no sanction. If the moment you're asked to write the date, you start lurching up & down as if you're about to wet yourself & shouting MISS MISS I HAVEN'T GOT A PEN BECAUSE OMAR TOOK MINE IN MATHS, or if you sit there gormlessly, silently not writing until I enquire, & THEN tell me about Omar in Maths, you probably will get a Not Ready point for unnecessary time wasting.

As for Isolation, my school has banks of worksheets for every subject. If a child is in isolation, an email goes out requesting work. You email it back & the teacher on duty prints it out. If you don't see the email because you're teaching, the kid gets to select a worksheet from the box file for that subject & that Key Stage. Yes, the frequent flyers probably do a lot of repetitive sheets on apostrophes & fractions.

As for toilet & lunch breaks, they are escorted to the toilet during lesson times as required, & are taken to the cafeteria 10 minutes before the lunch break to grab something & take it back to the Isolation room.

Yes, they are expected to sit in silence. They will have a restorative conversation during the day with the HOY & the teacher who removed them from class, so that hopefully everyone can move on without fuss next day.

2 days on the bounce for a year 7 would be highly unusual. I'm wondering if he kicked off on day 1...? So the situation remains unresolved?

I do wonder if in any of those 21 hours of silence anyone actually sat him down to explain what he actually did wrong and why it is wrong.
Because otherwise what is the point.

What happens at lunchtime?

@CorvusPurpureus

'As for toilet & lunch breaks, they are escorted to the toilet during lesson times as required, & are taken to the cafeteria 10 minutes before the lunch break to grab something & take it back to the Isolation room.'

You write this as if it's completely acceptable and normal for a school to act like this. Do the kids even get out for lunch time to walk around for the appropriate length of time for exercise and fresh air? To me, this seems completely barbaric. They are not in prison. It's basically solitary confinement.

They get walked to the cafeteria & back...it's outside (not in the UK) so yes, they're getting fresh air.

Unless you'd like schools to build an additional exercise yard (now that would be prison-like), or take that day's two or three isolation kids for a cross country at lunchtime (can't imagine that would be popular either), then the point of Isolation is that they don't get to hang out with their peers a) in lessons where they're disrupting the learning of others or b) at break times when they're causing issues by their unruly behaviour. & they get time to think that no, this is not much fun.

It's a re-set. A boring day at the end of which - 3pm - they can go for a run or something if they desperately need to let off steam, & then, hopefully, decide that today sucked & they won't do anything that means they get stuck in there again.

Perfect solution? No. What would you advocate instead?

Well, that depends on the 'crime'. In the case of this poster's child, I would advocate for having a conversation with him on why his search term was inappropriate. Possibly giving him a detention or an essay.
In Ireland, if a teenager was being really disruptive they might be removed from the class for a short while or sent home if really bad behaviour but I'd never heard of a specific isolation room. There's no way this would fly if the child was under 12. It seems like psychological abuse to me.

Do you know what the good kid does? The good kid borrows a pen from their equally good mates and doesn’t bother me at all.

The chaotic homelife kids get sorted with other systems.

I’ve had kids ask to borrow equipment from me that they have in their bag and can’t be arsed to get out.

This constant ‘oh you can’t sanction pissing about not having a pen because you are punishing the studious kid who forgot it or the kid who can’t afford it’ is just extremely tiresome. During Covid when we weren’t allowed to hand out pens it was genuinely astonishing how they suddenly all managed to have one. It’s a pretty bloody basic requirement. And they all manage to remember their phones.